I often present myself as a non-framework person when I meet new agencies. Everyone wants “React”, everyone wants Angular. No one wants Backbone anymore? What happened to the devs who spent hours to learn it?
Why I choose not to focus on JavaScript frameworks
I see so many framework roles at the moment (React, Angular). Everyone wants frameworks but frameworks are a trend. For instance, there are clients/agencies who request this technology without really knowing why exactly they want it, it’s a buzz tech, good one but still a buzz tech. React is meant to be used for app-driven web build. A website with a good caching can perform as well in term of speed (users won’t perceive the difference). It will be developed quicker and will be easier to maintain.
Another issue nowadays is we are creating an army of web developer using frameworks, but they can’t do the classic HTML, CSS, JS properly and quickly.
Personally, I focus on doing the basics well and quickly. I might not be able to create an advanced React app, but I can cut off a design and build a responsive layout quicker than most of the developers who know plenty of frameworks. Knowing the fundamentals and that’s what every developer should focus on before to target frameworks, sadly it’s not the case.
There is a really good article by Eduards Sizovs saying what I want to say (kind of). His post from December 2018 is called “Stop Learning Frameworks“